What makes people follow social media pages and why?

Have you ever thought about why you follow certain brand’s pages on social media? The answer may seem complicated, depending on what the brand does. Do you follow for brand offers and discounts, or do you simply like the engaging content that they routinely post?

Here are some suggested ways to make more people follow you on social media, and ways to learn why your followers might unfollow you.

What makes people follow pages?

It’s interesting to look at the reasons that people follow social media pages. Sometimes it’s as simple as liking the brand. Some commerce pages may experience more likes because followers are eager to receive special sale offers or promotions. Lower on the list of reasons is the desire to keep up with brand specific news that the page might be posting, or just because the brand shares interesting things.

The number of people who follow a page simply because they like this is directly related to how valuable the brand is seen. If a brand or business routinely disappoints you, you probably wouldn’t want to follow their posts, and see what their up to. If you are genuinely interested in the brand, you like the products or the services they provide, you’ll want to follow the brand simply to see what they’re up to.

The most important thing to note about your pages and brand, is that not everyone will like you. You can’t cater to everyone or you will lose devoted followers.

What makes them unfollow pages?

While tracking down why people like a certain page can prove a little difficult, figuring out why they unfollow pages is easy. It comes down to automation and too much self-promotion.

If all a page does is brag about milestones, clients, awards, etc. it may become overloading and people may not want to see it all. It’s important to keep your page humble. Remember to toot your own when it’s appropriate, and to stay silent when it’s not.

Automation can be a silent killer to followers. If a brand doesn’t take the time to individually respond to clients, people will take notice. If a follower has a problem with a product, and posts a question about it, people will notice what the answer is. If the answer is one that has been sent out to all recent complaints, followers will take notice that your brand isn’t spending the time to respond to customers in a genuine way. This can upset more than just the frustrated customer, as usually these interactions take place in a public place, where other followers can see them or may become notified that they’re happening.

Automating updates vs. automating responses to people are completely different things. Sticking to a posting schedule can be key for trusted followers. They know your posting schedule and know when to expect the next sale announcement or article posting. But automating your response to valued followers and customers is a sure way to get them to unfollow you.